Looking back…

Looking back I guess Lauren has always lived with a certain level of anxiety. When she was at junior school, her anxiety led her to have to a couple of hypnotherapy sessions which gave her the confidence to deal with things and ask for help. But the panic attacks started around the age of 15. These meant she hardly went to school, and when she did manage she spent most of the time in the medical room and I had numerous phone calls to go and pick her up. Then it was the summer holidays, and she hardly left the house, just spending her time watching TV and eating toast! She did receive some CBT at the time, although this did not seem to help. But then, as quickly as they started, one day the panic attacks stopped!

Life seemed to get back to ‘normal’ for a while. I’m sure Lauren had stuff going on but I was unaware of anything at the time. So now we jump to a few months before her 18^th birthday. So Lauren is lying on the beautician’s table having her legs waxed and I feel this wave of panic wash over me when I look at her legs. Now I knew she’d lost a bit of weight, but as a teenager she was very private about getting undressed around me so I hadn’t realised just how much she had lost. I can remember feeling sick to my stomach and had no idea how to tackle talking to her about it. I can’t really remember what was said, but I remember feeling that I had to ‘fatten’ her up before it got any worse.

It was a battle between wanting to force feed her and also not to make a big deal out of food as I thought this could make the situation worse. So every time I went shopping I was on a mission to find things that would tempt her to eat just a small amount. I was so scared of losing my baby but had to put on a brave face as didn’t want her to feel any of the fear and anguish I was facing. So we plodded along for the next few months, she got thinner and thinner but I think I was too scared to take her to the doctors for fear they would diagnose an eating disorder, thus making it real. So I continued burying my head a bit, trying to get her to eat, and willing her to get better.

Christmas came and went and Lauren went back to school, or so I thought! After a week of her leaving the house at the normal time, and coming home at the end of the day, she admitted that she had dropped out of 6^th form before Christmas! I didn’t have a clue how to react – my baby was throwing her life away and I didn’t know what to do. But then I took a minute and realised that her health and happiness were far more important than her education, and that she could always go back the following September.

Within the next few days I had a ‘lightbulb’ moment – maybe she could go to Canada and stay with my family for a few months. This was a crazy idea as neither of us really knew this family (I’m adopted and we are talking about my birth mother and the family she had since married into) but I was getting desperate. Nothing I was doing was helping Lauren get better so I thought maybe a complete change of scenery would be the answer. I knew it was a ‘do or die’ situation, literally, but what other choice was there.

So I jokingly suggested it to Lauren, who immediately messaged Canada, and within a couple of days her flight was booked, passport ordered, and she was leaving in three weeks. Looking back it was a very brave move, for both of us, but I have no doubt it saved her. I still feel guilt and shame that I couldn’t ‘save’ her (after all it’s my job), but also proud that I had the courage to let her go. But in the end it doesn’t really matter what, or who, helped her through that awful time – just that she got through it.

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